Bar KJ, Shaw PA, Choi GH, et al. - In this study including severely ill, hospitalized adults with COVID-19 pneumonia, a significant benefit in clinical severity score and 28-day mortality was conferred by two units of locally sourced convalescent COVID-19 plasma (CCP) given early in hospitalization to majority seronegative participants. Findings indicate CCP could be beneficial for select populations, especially those with comorbidities who are treated early.

• In this randomized control trial (PennCCP2), the efficacy of CCP was examined in severely ill, hospitalized adults with COVID-19 pneumonia.

• Overall 80 patients were included, in whom comparison was made between up to 2 units of locally sourced CCP plus standard care vs standard care alone.

• CCP treatment proved to be safe and led to significant benefit by clinical severity score (median [MED] and interquartile range [IQR] 10 [5.5–30] vs 7 [2.75–12.25]) and 28-day mortality (n = 10, 26% vs n = 2, 5%).

• All other prespecified outcome measures demonstrated weak evidence toward the benefit of CCP.